Information Age: News, analysis & insight for IT & business leaders

Software giant Microsoft finally released its server operating system, Windows Server 2003, after delaying the launch three times. The goal of the new release is to re-position the company as a high-end 'software stack' supplier, competing head-to-head with Sun Microsystems and IBM. According to CEO Steve Ballmer, Windows Server 2003 represents "one of the most significant pieces of work we have ever done".

That confidence was not echoed in Microsoft's third quarter results, however. Although the company reported increases in sales and profits of 8% and 1.8% respectively, it warned that its 2004 financial year, which begins on July 1, 2003, would be a year of financial uncertainty.

Dr Edgar 'Ted' Codd, the inventor of the relational database, died of heart failure aged 79. Codd's ideas inspired IBM's core database product DB2 and provided the basis for the Oracle software empire. "The sad thing is that Ted never became rich out of his idea," mourned long-time business partner Chris Date.

Engineering conglomerate Invensys put its Baan enterprise resource planning software division up for sale, a month after telling customers it had no plans to sell it. Invensys acquired Baan for $708 million in 2000, twice its annual revenues at that time. Analysts expect Baan to go for a fraction of that price this time around.

IDC pegged back its IT spending predictions, blaming continued economic slowdown and military action in Iraq. At the end of 2002, the analyst group forecast that IT spending would grow by between 8% and 9% over the next four years. IDC now believes growth will be a more conservative 6.5% to 7% for that period.

Hewlett-Packard won a $3 billion, 10-year outsourcing contract with consumer goods giant Procter &Gamble covering virtually all of the consumer goods company's IT operations. The contract was the third major outsourcing deal signed by HP in the space of a week. The other deals were with mobile phone maker Ericsson and the Bank of Ireland.

Sun Microsystems released 'Trusted Solaris' - a version of its Unix operating system that has been used by US government and defence agencies for years. The software includes a host of security features not available on standard Solaris and is being targeted at security-conscious corporations.

Network Associates, the security software supplier, announced two acquisitions in the space of a week. The company paid $100 million for network-based intrusion detection software developer IntruVert, and closely followed that with the complementary $120 million purchase of Entercept Security Technologies, which makes host-based intrusion detection software.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison predicted that 1,000 Silicon Valley companies will go bust as a result of consolidation in the IT industry. As technology products become more commoditised, he told Dow Jones Newswire, smaller companies will find it difficult to compete, so only a few big-name survivors will remain.